


This Must Be the Place

by dadvans



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 02:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7134437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dadvans/pseuds/dadvans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It feels like I’m falling in love with you sometimes,” Arin says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Must Be the Place

One night when they’re first getting to know each other, Arin tells Dan, “it feels like I’m falling in love with you sometimes.”

It’s in the sticky pit of summer, eighty degrees at eleven o’clock at night, air dry and smelling like dirt and salt coming in on warm winds from the ocean.  They’re sitting in Arin’s car outside of an In N Out and Dan has his feet on the dash eating a Double Double protein-style.  Arin eats everything animal style, sauce everywhere, his fingers, the wheel, the A/C button.  The light from the parking lot is orange, criss crossing both their features like zebra stripes in the shadows.  The radio is playing something forgettable by Green Day.  

“Hey, you got some,” Dan says, gesturing at Arin’s face, “right here on your--”

Arin moves to wipe at the side of his mouth and ends up getting sauce all across his lips and in his moustache, and Dan laughs so hard his eyes squeeze shut and he chokes on his burger.  As he pounds on his own chest and clears his throat, tears coming out of his eyes because of how fucking  _stupid_ Arin looks, Arin starts laughing too, and then they’re both laughing out loud in the dark, shaking the car.  It takes forever for them to quiet down, shuddering sighs rolling out of their mouths like waves getting smaller and smaller.  

“It feels like I’m falling in love with you sometimes,” Arin says.  

Dan remembers this for a long time.  
  


* * *

   
“One thousand,” Arin says, following Dan into the hotel room with a grocery bag.

“Nope,” Dan says.

“Five thousand? Ten thousand?” Arin says.

“Still no,” Dan replies.  

“Dude, one hundred thousand,” Arin says.  Dan shakes his head, moving straight for the mini fridge, and waves hi to Brian, who is lying in the bed closest to the door eating a yogurt cup.  

“What are you trying to guess?” Brian asks Arin, who is standing behind Dan with a predatory stance while Dan starts unloading gatorades from the grocery bag into the mini fridge.  

“How much I would have to pay Dan to suck my dick,” Arin says, stepping back when Dan turns around and flips him off.  “A million? Come on, man, you’ve seen my dick.  It’s a nice dick.”  

“It’s a perfectly nice dick,” Dan agrees. “I’m just not going to put it in my mouth for any amount of money.”

“How!” Arin says.  He turns to Brian, who shrugs. “Brian! How much would I have to pay you to suck my dick.”

“Uh,” Brian says.  “Two-fifty.”

Arin pauses.  “Wait, like, two hundred-fifty, or two dollars and fifty cents?”

“You know me,” Brian replies, scraping the last of the yogurt from the bottom of his cup.  “I’m easy.”

“See, even Brian would suck dick for cash!  You are literally the only guy I’ve ever met who would not put a dick in his mouth for a million dollars.  And my dick!   _My_ dick, Dan, it’s not just anyone’s dick!”

“Why do you want me to suck your dick so bad, Arin?” Dan asks tiredly.  He’s left one gatorade out, cherry, and it stains his mouth when he takes a big gulp, waiting for Arin’s response.  

“Well, I mean like, hypothetically.”  

Dan rolls his eyes, but he smiles at Arin anyway and gives him a punch on the shoulder.  

“Whatever loser,” he says fondly.  “Okay, I feel like a bag of dicks that got run over on the highway and want to rest my voice before the show, so I’m gonna pass out for an hour.  Do you think you can go an hour without talking about dicks, Arin?”

“No promises,” Arin says, as Dan crawls onto the other bed in the room.  

He talks about dicks the entire hour.  

 

* * *

  

“God, I love you.”  Dan’s heard this a lot.

He’s starting to think he has a different definition of love than most people.

 

* * *

 

“So, I give up,” Arin says.  They’ve just spent two hours getting lost in Powell’s and are now walking down the northwest Portland waterfront with bags full of books they’ll probably never read.

“Give up what?” Dan asks.  He bought a few volumes of Sex Crimes, an anthology on mid-century jazz, and a new copy of American Gods.

“Guessing how much money it would take to get you to fuck a guy,” Arin replies.

“Oh my god,” Dan says.  He’s smiling, but his voice sounds pained, and he staggers a little bit.  “Not this again.  It’s been months, Arin.  Please stop.”

“Dude, you literally touch a dick every day, I just don’t see what’s so weird about touching someone else’s, like!  Are you really that freaked out by gay shit,” Arin says.  He swings his own recycled bag of books between them, knocking Dan in the knees playfully.

“It doesn’t have to do with,” Dan says, pauses, shakes his head.  He tries to make quotation marks with his hands, but they’re full, “' _gay shit_.'”

“What else could it have to do with!” Arin says a little too loud.  A few tourists taking pictures between the cherry blossom trees at the side of the path turn around to stare at them.  Arin waves at them to be contrary while Dan picks up the pace.  

“I don’t want to get into this,” Dan says when Arin has to jog to keep up with him.  

“Is there uh, something to get into?” Arin asks, a weird, unreadable expression coming over his features.  Dan shakes his head again, brushes some of his hair out of his face aggressively.  

“No!  Just-- just don’t ask me about this one thing, okay?  Okay, Arin?  Alright?”  He sounds a lot more stressed than Arin is used to, and it kind of freaks Arin out.   

“Yeah, man,” Arin says.  “No problem.”

“Cool,” Dan says, then stops.  He gestures over his shoulder where they’re walking past the red and gold gates to China Town. “Hey, uh.  I’m going to maybe hang out by myself for awhile.  Get lost, or whatever.  Maybe read a book.  That okay?”

“Yeah,” Arin says again slowly.  “See you later?”

“See you later,” Dan says, turning away.  Arin watches him walk toward the city again, shuffling his own bags in one hand to pull the phone out of his back pocket and thumb through it.  Eventually Arin can’t see him anymore, but he still stands there trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

 

* * *

 

The AirBNB they’re staying in is a renovated loft closer to downtown.  It’s all vaulted ceilings and big windows to make the narrow spaces feel bigger than they really are.  The living room is probably the same size as Arin’s smallest bathroom, but whatever.  It has four rooms, so no one has to listen to Brian snore, and Dan doesn’t haven’t to cozy up with Arin and Suzy.  Down the street is a Pizza Schmizza, which is perfect, because:

“Hi honey, I’m home,” Dan says, sneaking through the front door and following the smell of pizza down the narrow hallway.  “Did you get me pizza?”

Arin’s the only one still up.  It’s almost midnight; Suzy is more of a morning person than anyone else in the grumps family, and Brian just takes advantage of any night away from a toddler in the same household to catch up on missed sleep.  

“It has alligator on it,” Arin says, gesturing at the half-eaten pizza on the coffee table.  On TV is the cold open for SNL.  “Is that cool?”

“Super cool,” Dan says, putting down his bags.  He has more shit than he did after Powell’s today, after the weird thing in the park.  Arin can see bags from Buffalo Exchange and Music Millennium.  “If I eat it will I inherit its lizard powers?”

Arin just flicks his tongue suggestively at Dan, hissing.  Dan bites his bottom lip trying not to laugh and grabs a cold slice, flopping down next to him.  

“You’re so weird,” he says in the most adoring tone in the world.  

“That’s why you love me,” Arin says.  “Hey, sorry about earlier today.”

“No big swig, baby,” Dan says, tucking his feet underneath him and pressing his side against Arin’s.  “Are we watching a new episode?”

“Yeah,” Arin says.

And that’s it.  They don’t have to look at each other, don’t have to stare into each other’s eyes to know that they’re telling the truth and that things are okay.  They don’t have to dig deep in each other to communicate.  They can sit silently watching SNL, Dan occasionally chewing pizza open-mouthed in Arin’s ear just to watch his skin crawl and toes curl, and be fine.  

They can also fall asleep on the couch halfway through the episode, Dan’s mouth against the back of Arin’s neck, pizza half-eaten and overturned on a napkin in his lap.  His greasy fingers are curled in the pocket of Arin’s hoodie.  There are infomercials on, illuminating the room in an eerie glow.  Dan vaguely remembers when he was little and would fall asleep on the couch and wake up to just static, the sound of the world gone to bed.

He wakes up like this, and takes them both in.  He thinks he’s falling in love with Arin.  He’s been falling in love with Arin since the first time they met, since before then even.  He wonders what love looks like to Arin, what he meant that one night years ago.  

He kisses the back of Arin’s neck, where his hairline is pulled up tight into a ponytail, and goes to bed.

 

* * *

 

They go bungee jumping for Dan’s thirty-eighth birthday and it’s terrifying.  Ross goes first because he has to be a show off, which is fine, because it means that Dan isn’t going over the edge soon.  But then Suzy goes screaming with a smile the size of her face, and Brian, who laughs through the entire experience so loud they can hear him a hundred feet down.  Barry curses like a motherfucker, as does Vernon and surprisingly, Kevin.  Arin lets Dan hold his hand the entire time until it’s his turn to jump.

“I’ll be right back,” Arin says, squeezing his hand once tightly before letting go.  

“You don’t have to,” Dan replies, almost chasing after him to the platform.  “We can just take off, you know.  No pressure.”

“Dan, this was your idea,” Arin says matter of factly, while the crew gets his lines secured with the added clusterfuck of the cameras and boom mics they brought with them to film the entire ordeal.  “Also, I want to do this.”

“I don’t think you do,” Dan tells him.  “Like, I really think you’re fine and I’m fine if neither of us jump, because we don’t have anything to prove or our integrity on the line or anything.”

“Don’t worry,” Arin sings to him as the crew pulls him over to the edge. “Don’t worry, ba-a-a-by.”

Dan’s stomach still drops when Arin does, when he goes right over the edge and out of view.  He’s not sure if he’s more afraid for Arin, or just afraid that this means he has to go next.  

When Arin comes back up he’s laughing so hard he’s crying, and he walks over to everyone else with wobbly steps.  “I love you so much,” he says, pulling Suzy in and kissing the side of her head, and then Dan to do the same.  “C’mere, asswad, you too.  God I love you both so much, and I just wanted you both to know if I died thirty seconds ago.”  

Dan is just trying his best to cling to whatever noise is coming out of Arin’s mouth, words indistinguishable past his overwhelming urge to vomit at the thought of going over the edge himself.  His hands are shaking.  His knees are stone solid.  

“I can’t do this,” he says to no one in particular.

“Yeah you can,” Arin says, giving his butt a smack.  “You got this.”

“Feisty,” Dan manages to mutter under his breath as he’s corralled to the jump off point.  He doesn’t remember much after that.  

He does remember how cold the wind felt, but even more how much colder it felt in the place where Arin leaned in and kissed him.  

 

* * *

 

“It’s not a gay thing,” he says suddenly.  He’s still got the post-jump adrenaline pulsing through him, and he just feels like the velocity of the jump peeled him back by the skin until only his skeleton was left.  He feels raw and exposed and absolutely alive with it.  

“What?” Arin asks.  They’re back in Dan’s tiny, concrete backyard, smoking birthday cigars.

“When you used to bug me about not wanting to blow guys for money,” Dan says.  “It wasn’t because it was a gay thing.  It was a money thing.”

“Shit,” Arin says.  “I, uh.  I didn’t know that was a thing that would bother you.”

“Yeah,” Dan says.  “No one really does?  Because it’s not--I’m not--Like, look: I took the long road to get here.  I took the long, long, long road.  And sometimes the only thing that kept me on that road, sometimes the difference between eating well and keeping my apartment for another month was that.”

“Sex,” Arin says slowly.

“For money,” Dan finishes.  “I had sex for money.”

“Shit,” Arin says again.  And before he can stop himself, “Dudes?”

Dan laughs, but it’s not a good laugh.  It’s hollow and punched out of him.  “Sometimes, sure.”

“Huh,” Arin says.  “I must of sounded like a fucking asshole.”

“No,” Dan says.  “But kinda.  Yeah.  You did.  But you didn’t know.”

“Does Brian know?” Arin asks.  

“Nope,” Dan replies, folding his hands together and staring at the zig-zag of his fingers, cigar folded in at the top, cherry glowing.  “Brian does not.  Not many people do.  Mostly the people who were fucking me know.  And we don’t really like, keep in touch, you know?”

“Ha,” Arin laughs weakly, because he doesn’t know what else to offer in turn.  

“Anyway,” Dan says, cigar dying between his fingers.  He puts it back in his mouth and speaks around the edge. “I don’t really want to talk about it.  But. I just thought if anyone were to know about it, I’d want it to be you.”

“It’s okay man, we don’t have to talk about it,” Arin says.  “Thank you.”

 

* * *

 

Arin thinks, who was the first guy you ever slept with?  What was his name?  Did you know his name?  Were girls first, then guys?  Did you prefer one or the other?  I mean, I assume you prefered girls, because you prefer girls now, or at least I think you prefer girls.  I feel like I should know these things and now I’m not so sure, and I know I’m not entitled to them, but still, man, sometimes I can’t tell where you end and I begin and I feel like I should know these things in the deepest part of me even if you don’t tell me, because you’re my best friend and I want to know everything about you, even the bad things.  

Arin thinks, what did it taste like?  Dick?  Did you like it?  How much did they pay you?  Did you have a pimp?  Were you on the street, on street corners, is that really how it works?  Could I have pulled up to you one night--and Arin imagines an unlit city street, rain slick, Dan leaning on the corner of some old brick building in a more worn-in leather jacket and torn jeans--could I have pulled up to you one night, opened the passenger door, and would you have climbed in?  Or did you wait in a hotel room until there was a knock, or did they wait for you?  

Arin thinks about how Dan leans in doorways sometimes, elbows overhead and hands gripping the top of the frame, and how he’ll strike Arin still with a look, and Arin thinks, is that how they saw you?  Is that how you greeted them, or waited for them, or whatever?  Was that just a part of, is that just reminiscent of the trade?  

Arin thinks, what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever done for money?  Would it be weird if you fucked me?  Even for free?  I know I have Suzy, but--look, I’ve always said if she got the opportunity, she should totally fuck Ryan Gosling, and she’s always said if I get the opportunity, I should totally fuck you.  Or be fucked by you.  Or however that works.  How would it work with us?  Do you know that I’ve thought that since the first time I saw you?  I saw you enter the restaurant and you started to take off your coat and then before it was past your wrists you shrugged it back on and smiled at the hostess and she pointed you to my table, and I thought for the first time what it would be like to have you in my mouth.

Arin thinks a lot of things.  But they aren’t talking about it.  So he doesn’t say any of them out loud.  

 

* * *

 

One time a guy paid Dan’s rent for seven months if he came over every other week and let the guy fuck between his feet.  The guy called him “Leigh” and wore nice suits and drove even nicer cars.  He’d say, “god yeah, fuck yeah, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, I love you so fucking much,” when he came all over Dan’s toes. Dan can’t remember his name.  One time he showed up at the coffee shop Dan worked at.  He ordered a bone dry cappuccino with hemp milk, because he was that brand of asshole, honestly.  

“So this is what you do for a living?” The guy had asked.  

_Actually, I’m a musician,_ Dan had wanted to say.  

“Yeah,” he’d said instead.  “The day job.  You’re looking at it.”

 

* * *

 

Men have been with Dan.  Men who aren’t Arin have been with Dan. Arin can’t stop thinking about it.  It’s in his mind like a bruise that Arin can’t stop pressing; Dan’s fucked dudes, but he hasn’t fucked Arin.  It feels so incredibly abstract and unfair and it puts into perspective, the more Arin thinks about it, how much exactly he wants.

“You okay, Big Cat?” Dan says, coming up behind him as he collapses into his folded arms halfway through writing an e-mail.  Dan rubs the space between his shoulders until Arin spins around in his chair and puts his face against Dan’s stomach.  The well-worn feeling of his t-shirt, and the soft of his belly underneath is a great comfort.  “What’re you thinking about?”

“How much I love you,” Arin answers honestly, closing his eyes.  

“Well, don’t let it kill you,” Dan says.  He sounds concerned.

“Isn’t that how the saying goes though?” Arin says, pushing himself away from Dan, but still holding onto his belt loops with his thumbs.  “‘Find what you love and let it kill you.’”

Dan looks down at him kind of funny.  His reaction is unreadable, but he says, “Yeah.  I think so,” and strokes some of Arin’s bangs back out of his eyes.

It should be enough.  With most of Arin’s friends, touching and talking like this would feel like too much, but with Dan it’s not enough.  No matter how much Dan gives of himself, Arin wants more, and he hates it.  He hates suddenly and fiercely that he doesn’t know Dan as intimately as other men do, and when Dan runs his hand through Arin’s hair, Arin imagines it sliding down his face, fingers tracing his cheeks, thumb catching in his mouth.  

 

* * *

 

Arin goes to take a shit and Suzy rolls her office chair over to where Dan and Brian are sitting on the cushions talking music.  She holds out a package of red vines to them like a peace offering and says, “is it just me, or has he been acting weird lately,” nodding to where Arin walked out of the room a few minutes ago.

He’s been quieter since Dan’s birthday, since he and Dan were alone in the backyard.  He’s quiet in the same way he’s quiet when he gets scared or overwhelmed, when something big is about to break or they have an event coming up; it’s the same kind of quiet he gets when he’s feeling vulnerable or has something on the table to lose.  Dan knows Arin’s different shades of quiet, but he doesn’t know this one.  He’s been trying not to think about it.  

“Yeah,” he says.  

 

* * *

 

Suzy and Arin have a fight.  It’s a big fight.  No one knows what it’s about, but they call for an emergency hiatus, with Ross, Barry and Brian using Steam Train to make up for a week of no material.  Dan takes the opportunity to fly home to New Jersey for a few days to see his parents and decompress.  

_You can come with if you want_ , Dan texts Arin, because Arin isn’t answering his calls.  He takes a picture of his itinerary and forwards it with the text before starting to pack.  

Arin shows up at his apartment an hour later, letting himself in and knocking gently on Dan’s door.  He’s in sweats and looks like he hasn’t showered or slept much since Dan saw him two days ago.  Dan pulls him in for a hug, and he smells even worse.

“Big Cat,” he says.  “Hey.”

“Suzy and I had a fight,” Arin says.  His voice is the kind of raw that comes from shouting and crying.  

“I mean, I got the company e-mail,” Dan says.  “You wanna talk about it?”

He doesn’t expect Arin to say yes.  Arin takes a few deep breaths with his face pressed against Dan’s shoulder and stays quiet, but then he nods and takes a step back. 

“I told Suzy that I can’t stop thinking about fucking you,” Arin says. “Or getting fucked by you.  I’m not really sure.”

“What,” Dan says.  He feels behind him blindly for his bed and sits down slowly when he finds it.  

“Don’t make me say it again,” Arin says. “It was hard enough the first time.”

Dan looks up at him wearily.  Arin looks terrible, messier and less put together than usual, greasy and disheveled and exhausted.  There’s no way he’s joking.  

“I know we mess around a lot, dude,” Arin continues.  “But I gotta be honest, like.  You, you were saying the other night, I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it, so I’ve been trying not to talk about it, but--”

Dan feels like a lone man in a tunnel, and Arin is a freight train, roaring straight at him, death on impact with the weight of his words.

Find what you love and let it kill you, he remembers.

“Are you telling me that after I confided in you that I had to suck dick for cash when I was broke,” Dan says, interrupting him.  “Your reaction was, _so why hasn’t he sucked my dick_?”

“I mean,” Arin says, pausing briefly to find his words.  “That is a really poor way of putting it.  But yes.”

“Fuck you, Arin,” Dan says.  He hurts.  This hurts.  

“No, wait, look: I’ve always thought about it, but it was this harmless thought, because like-- I didn’t realize it was an option,” Arin says.

“When did it become an option?  Just because there was a point in my life where I’d fuck desperate people, and you know that, I’m suddenly an option?  This is something we can suddenly do?”  Dan tries to keep his voice from rising, but he can feel his pulse in his neck and his face turning red.  “How about no, dude?  How about you have a wife?  How about I get a say, and how, how, how about I’m not some fucking whore that you get to use to have your big gay experience with, Arin?”

“Shit,” Arin says. “No--”

“You should leave,” Dan says.

“No, we should talk about this,” Arin says. “I want to talk about this.”

“Well, I don’t,” Dan replies.  He pushes himself up and starts stuffing his rolled up t-shirts into his suitcase a little more aggressively than he had been.  “I didn’t want to talk about it, and I still don’t.  I can’t fucking believe you, Arin.  This is so fucked up.”

“Dude,” Arin says.

“Please go,” Dan says.

Arin hangs there like a puppet with his strings cut, dangling, waiting.  Dan won’t turn around to look at him, because then he might cry.  He doesn’t cry much anymore, but this is getting him there.  

“Please,” he says again.

Arin goes.

 

* * *

 

Avi and Debbie made him clean his old childhood bedroom out over a decade ago and converted it into an office, but there are still hints of his youth in the room.  They’ve kept his old bed and covered it with more modest bed sheets; the closet has a few of his clothes that haven’t seen the light of day since the mid-nineties, a few picture albums, his bar mitzvah video, stacks of blankets that include a quilt Granny Sexbang made him when he was a baby.  

It’s comforting, which is what he needs.  More and more these days he thinks of Los Angeles as his first home, but then he comes back to the east coast and it smells and feels like the oldest heart of himself.  And it’s good to know he still has this identity separate from Arin and the Grumps family and the life he’s made for himself that he’s surely proud of.  It’s good to know sometimes that there’s more to him than the bulk of what everyone sees, and in times like now, that layer of skin is what protects him when he’s feeling hurt.  

The comfort of his parent’s house is also much needed when he oh, say, catches up with some old friends in the city and has three beers, which are three more beers than he’s had in a long, long time.  Middle age plus zero tolerance equals him feeling like he’s shitting his entire body through his asshole.  

Avi makes an enthusiastic homecoming breakfast, which has just the right amount of grease, but Dan still barely keeps it down and winds up back in bed afterward with a few ibuprofen and water on the nightstand.  Eventually his body and head stop feeling like they met the business end of a steamroller, but he’s still nauseous and alcohol stupid well into the late afternoon.  His parents both check in on him, sit on the edge of his bed and talk about what’s been going on, and invite him down for TV, or lunch, or dinner.  But he feels like shit, and the small part of his brain that is still working just obsesses over the fact that his best friend of five years wants to fuck him for the experience of fucking him.  It’s like Arin’s thrown him in some cast iron over a flame and scraped him around until he was reduced to nothing.  Arin looks at him and sees his skin and his dick and his mouth, and it’s more upsetting than it ever was with the faceless somebodies who took advantage of that when he was younger, because it’s _Arin_.  

“Dan.”  Avi’s at his door again, just his head poking in after a quick knock.  “Dan, your friend, eh, Arin is here to see you.  He said you may not want to see him, so I should tell you that he’s here instead of him coming up, so-o-o-o yes, he’s here.  What ah, what do you want me to do?”

“Kill me,” Dan says from underneath three blankets, a beanie pulled over his eyes.  His chest could burst open at any second with how much the thought of Arin makes him blindly ache.  It’s really shitty to understand suddenly from experience that after everything he’s been through, Arin is the only person on the planet capable of making him feel like nothing; that no one has ever been so important to him before to have that kind of power over him.  

“Eh, okay no,” Avi says.  “I am not going to kill you, Dan.  Do you want me to tell him to go?”

“Yes,” Dan says, instantly wincing around the words as they come out of his mouth. “Fuck, no.  No, he can stay.  Tell him he can come up.”

Avi knocks on his doorframe twice and leaves.  Dan burrows more under his blankets in a last ditch attempt to completely disappear, as the sound of Avi going back downstairs fades away.  If he listens for it, he can hear the a muted conversation and then more footsteps headed back toward him.  

Arin stands in the doorway saying absolutely nothing for a long time.  Dan can’t see him, but he can hear him stop right at the threshold and the shaky way he exhales long and slow.  

“I’m not like this because of you,” Dan says eventually.  He doesn’t roll over to face Arin, so he’s not completely sure if Arin can see him.  “I’m just really hungover.”

“I didn’t think you could drink anymore,” Arin says, taking one cautious step inside.

“I can’t,” Dan says, and he tries not to laugh when he says it. “Obviously.  God.  I only had three beers and I feel like shit.”

“Me too,” Arin says.  “I mean, like, emotional shit.  I’m not uh, I drank zero beers.”  

Dan offers him a thumbs up from under the covers.  He hears Arin sigh.

“I thought about it uh,” Arin says, hesitating before he sits down at the edge of Dan’s bed. “I was a fucking mess on the flight over here.  I mean, I’ve been a mess.  I think I’ve been a mess over you since the day we met, and it’s the scariest fucking thing in the world actually admitting it.”

“I’m sorry I made you gay,” Dan says, hating how petty and childish it comes out.  He rolls over to look at Arin, tugs the beanie up from his eyes.  Arin’s frowning at him.  He’s still red-faced with bags under his eyes, but at least now he seems recently showered, wearing a different pair of sweats and a fresh t-shirt.  It’s every instinct in the world for Dan to sit up and hold him in a way that most men don’t.

Arin has the decency to laugh anyway.  “I mean, don’t give yourself all the credit, buddy.  Just like, maybe ninety percent.”

Dan’s jaw clenches a little involuntarily and Arin sees it, recognizes every microscopic movement in him and its meaning.  

“I’m completely outside my element here, man,” he continues.  “I don’t--for the first time in my life, I don’t know what to say to you.  I don’t know what’s okay,but it feels like everything I’ve ever done up until now has been the wrong thing.  It’s not fair to you for me to force you to deal with uh, the way I feel for you.”

“The way you _feel for me_?” Dan repeats.  He can’t even look Arin in the eyes, staring up at the ceiling instead.  “I didn’t kick you out of my apartment because of your _feelings_ , Arin, I kicked you out because you were talking about how bad you wanted to _fuck me_.”

“I do want to fuck you!” Arin says, voice raising.  Dan _does_ look at him then, but only to shut him up.  Quieter he says, “I do.  I wanna fuck you.  But it’s not for some  _experience_ , Dan, it’s because I’m in love with you, you asshole.  And I wish I wasn’t, but I am, and I want to share everything with you, and I want to know everything about you down to the stupid noises you make when you’re balls deep inside someone, because I’m selfish and awful, and I don’t know how to deal with wanting so much.”

“Oh,” Dan says after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence punctuated by Arin breathing a little heavily.  

“Yeah,” Arin says, bangs stringy and messy in his eyes.  Dan wants so badly to push them back behind his ear like some lovesick puppy that he’s starting to see reflected back at him when he looks at his best friend.  

“I just,” Dan tries, pushing himself up out of his blanket nest so he’s sitting up and curled over his knees.  “When you tried to talk to me about it, it seemed like, you know.  It seemed like a sex thing. Like you were reducing me, and us, and everything to sex.”

“I know,” Arin says.  “That’s why I didn’t want to leave.  Because I knew I said the wrong thing.  But I’m an idiot, man.  I don’t know how to talk about this shit.  I don’t know how to deal with this.  I don’t know how to tell my wife that I love her, but I love someone else too, and that doesn’t mean I love her any less, but I don’t expect her to understand.  I don’t know how to tell you what I want, or what I might eventually need, because I’m needy and miserable and want to drown you with me.”

“Well, I mean.  I’ve kind of been drowning on my own without your help,” Dan says sheepishly.  

“Dan,” Arin says, and he means so much when he says it.  It sounds like a cry for help, and a declaration, and a request all at once.  

“Baby,” Dan says, painfully fond, and it sounds like a response to everything that Arin didn’t ask when he said his name.  “We are so fucking stupid.”

“We are,” Arin agrees.  “So dumb.”

And that punches the first laugh out of Dan.  He presses his forehead against his knees and pulses silently with it.  “God,” he says into the comforter he’s buried under.  “I can’t believe us.”

Arin grabs his ankle, touch muted by the layers between them.  “Are we gonna be okay?”

Dan looks up at him.  “I think so, yeah,” he says.  He rests his chin on his knees for a second and tilts his head to the side.    “You wanna come here for a second?”

“For what?” Arin says.  He looks scared.

“I just wanna like, hold you,” Dan replies.  “Gay shit.  Not super gay shit.  But a little gay shit, maybe.  I really am hungover.  I just wanna cuddle.”

“Are we done fighting?”  Arin asks.  He’s already moving forward, pushing Dan back with a thick arm against his collarbone.  Dan rolls over onto his side so they’re reverse spooning, foreheads pressed together.  

“I think so,” Dan tells him, tugging at and shuffling the blankets so Arin’s cocooned with him.  They stare at each other for a few beats, trying to keep their smiles from stretching wide enough to break skin.  Arin leans forward eventually, testing a kiss against Dan’s forehead, then another to the corner of his mouth.  When he doesn’t retreat, Dan tilts his head just so and they’re kissing for real for the first time, soft and easy.  It feels like it lasts a thousand years, just their mouths pressed together timid and sweet, and when they pull apart it still feels like it was too short.  “At least for now.”

_It feels like I’m falling in love with you sometimes_ , Arin had said.  And now, he realizes, pressing his forehead against Arin's and breathing in deep, that Arin was.  

**Author's Note:**

> i'm [@dadvans](http://dadvans.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, hmu! thank you mari, for the cheerleading, and making me the best version of myself ♥

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] This must be the place](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7298194) by [disappointionist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/disappointionist/pseuds/disappointionist)




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